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The Camp, a planned outdoors-oriented retail center, has landed several tenants

Lab Holdings LLC has signed several tenants for its planned outdoor-sports oriented The Camp retail center, including Irvine-based Billabong USA, which will open its first retail outlet at the mall.

The $12 million development will be a 3.4 acre shopping center on Bristol Street in Costa Mesa that targets adventure-oriented consumers who sleep in solar-powered tents and climb mountains on $2,000 bicycles. Shaheen Sadeghi, founder of The Lab Anti-Mall, heads Lab Holdings, and the new mall will be across Bristol from that youth-oriented retail center.

The idea is to have a retail center for enthusiasts of such outdoor activities as kayaking, hiking and rock climbing and mountain biking, Sadeghi said.

“When I look at the outdoor industry, I see a tremendous value that has not been exploited yet,” said the former Quiksilver Inc. president who left to build The Lab in 1993. “The outdoor industry traditionally is associated with an older customer base, but we would like to see younger people exposed to the outdoors.”

The new retail center is scheduled to be completed in November, in time for the critical holiday shopping season.

The Camp will include the first Billabong retail store, a 5,800-square-foot multi-branded store selling apparel and surfboards, skateboards and snowboards that will include an indoor skate ramp. Other shops Sadeghi has lined up include a 2,800-square-foot Cycle Werks store, a kayak store featuring an indoor pool for testing the gear, an adventure-oriented travel store, a denim store, a spa and two restaurants.

One restaurant will feature rooftop dining and will float on water, Sadeghi said. The other, called Guru’s Restaurant, will be housed in a Mongolian-style tent called a yurt. Patrons who clean their plates will find quotes written on them such as “Never eat more than you can lift.”

Nate Franke, a retail analyst at Deloitte & Touche LLC in Costa Mesa, said today’s 20- to 30-year-old has grown up in a more active lifestyle.

“I think it’s refreshing to see people that are doing things that are not taking a cookie-cutter approach, but any time you do that it’s a gutsy move,” Franke said.

The center is being designed by architects at Bower & Wiley in Newport Beach, with landscaping designed by Andy Spurlock, whose projects have included the gardens at the Getty Center. The Camp will feature an amphitheater set amid redwood trees, an outdoor fire pit and even a vintage Airstream motor home that will double as a magazine stand.

The largest store will be a 12,000-square-foot Adventure 16 outlet offering hiking and climbing footwear, luggage, backpacks and other adventure gear. That store will feature a 3,000-square-foot Patagonia store within it under a grass roof.

John Mead, president of the San Diego-based Adventure 16 chain, said his company plans to close its Harbor Boulevard store in Costa Mesa when the new store opens this year. Mead said the new outlet will be the company’s second-largest, with about 25 employees and sales in the $400-per-square-foot range.

“Shaheen has got a real clear vision of how to create an outdoor center that is interesting and fun that crosses generations,” Mead said. “He also has the capability of pulling this off because he knows how to promote it, too.”

Meanwhile, Lab Holdings has a third shopping center in the works, a yet-to-be-named mall geared toward families with children, Sadeghi said. n

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